Israeli Court Convicts Palestinian Poet of “Incitement” and Membership in a Terror Group, for Writing a Poem

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Dareen Tatour, the poet as terrorist-criminal

Young Palestinian poet, Dareen Tatour, wrote a poem in the midst of the Knife Intifada three years ago. Entitled, Resist, the poem called for resistance against Israeli Occupation, and steadfastness in the face of oppression. Standard poetic themes in the face of injustice. There are literally thousands of similar poems, including memorable ones written by Israel’s first national poet, Haim Nachman Bialik.

But in Israel, writing such a poem and using Facebook and YouTube to disseminate it will get you branded a terrorist. Dareen was arrested three years ago. Her trial was postponed for that entire period and she was placed under strict house arrest. She was only permitted to leave her home once per weekend, and then only with police minders.

Yesterday, the court finally made a decision in her case: guilty. No surprise since Israeli courts convict 98% of Palestinian security defendants of their “crimes.” Dareen was found guilty of “incitement” and belonging to a terror group. It makes no difference that she doesn’t belong to any terrorist group. Expressing sympathy with the goals of the Palestinian national movement is enough to be deemed a terrorist.

Here is an eyewitness account of the shameful spectacle presided over by Judge Adi Bambilia, a judge so ashamed of her verdict that she mumbled her way through it so it would be that much harder for the assembled world media to know the result and report it:

The judge came in only after the media was allowed to take pictures in the courtroom. She sat on her high bench, said that the verdict is long, and that she would read only some of it. She read in a low voice and people complained that they can’t hear. She usually uses a mike – but not today. The guards wanted to throw out of the court the people that complained – but the judge requested them not to do it.

It all took hardly a few minutes, The only sentence that could be heard clearly was when the judge cited some old court ruling about the importance of the freedom of expression. Soon she concluded: “I decided to convict…” Then she went on in a very low voice to name the articles of conviction by their technical numbers, without any explanation, and soon disappeared through the back-door to her chamber.

Just one item indicating the ludicrousness of the Israeli State’s case against Dareen. It presented as an expert witness, a “translator” who grievously mistranslated her poem to claim it called for violence. The prosecution called the witness an “expert” in both spoken and literary Arabic, when he couldn’t even translate her poem properly. You remember Bibi’s dog and pony show headlined by the charge: “Iran Lied.” Well, forget that. Israel lied, “big time,” as both Trump and Netanyahu would say.

Dareen’s plight might have amounted to little amidst the sea of suffering and injustice perpetrated on Palestinians regularly by the Israeli military-intelligence apparatus, but her cause was taken up by an international human rights campaign supported by, among others, the literary freedom NGO, PEN. Its director visited Dareen under house arrest and took a picture with her to show the international artistic world’s solidarity.

While Israel may deem a terrorist, I honor her here by publishing her original video including her poem and its Hebrew and English translations. Keep in mind that Israel considers all of us accessories to terrorism by merely reading this. By the way, YouTube has restricted the video warning viewers that it contains inappropriate content. You have to click through the warning before you can view it. Thanks YouTube for standing for artistic freedom in the face of Israeli censoriousness!

In Jerusalem, I dressed my wounds and breathed my sorrows
And carried the soul in my palm
For an Arab Palestine.

I will not succumb to the “peaceful solution,”
Never lower my flags
Until I evict them from my land.
I cast them aside for a coming time.

Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the settler’s robbery
And follow the caravan of martyrs.
Shred the disgraceful constitution
Which imposed degradation and humiliation
And deterred us from restoring justice.

They burned blameless children;
As for Hadil, the sniper shot her in public,
Killed her in broad daylight.

Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the colonialist’s onslaught.
Pay no mind to his agents among us
Who chain us with the peaceful illusion.
Do not fear doubtful tongues;
The truth in your heart is stronger,
As long as you resist in a land
That has lived through raids and victory.

So Ali called from his grave:
Resist, my rebellious people.
Write me as prose on the agarwood;
My remains have you as a response.

I’m outraged and I’m sad. Dareen speaks only about the settlements, which every country in the world deems illegal. Under international law Palestinians have every right to resist their occupiers, even violently though she doesn’t suggest it in her poem.

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May 4, 2018 1:39 PM

Jim

Unless you realize that an Israeli who lives in Tel Aviv is also considered a settler.

@ Jim: Do you “realize that,” Jim? If so, then you’ve become a radical anti-Zionist, even farther to the left than I am. But hey, you’re most welcome here after your conversion! There are commenters to my right and my left.

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May 4, 2018 11:43 PM

Colin Wright

‘@ Jim: Do you “realize that,” Jim? If so, then you’ve become a radical anti-Zionist, even farther to the left than I am. But hey, you’re most welcome here after your conversion! There are commenters to my right and my left.’

I think what’s more interesting about Jim’s argument is that it furnishes a defence for literally any act of Zionist expansion.

Jim’s argument is essentially that no claim to freedom on the part of the conquered people can be admitted, because then they would claim all of Israel. So once seized, it becomes inadmissable to discuss relinquishing any part of ‘Israel’ — since to do so would implicitly open the question of relinquishing all of it.

…and some of the versions of Biblical Israel are pretty generous. By Jim’s logic, if Israel ever does get ahold of — say — Southern Lebanon, it would of course be right out to discuss liberating it, since that would lead inevitably to demands that Tel Aviv be freed.

…or, we could just go with the boundaries the UN set for the Jewish state in 1947, which that Jewish state accepted, which the various Arab states and the PLO have accepted, and which have never been superceded.

That’s actually why we have law — so that there is some clearly defined, common basis on which to proceed. As matters stand, Tel Aviv is legally no more in jeopardy than the Zionists have any right to be in Ramallah.

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May 6, 2018 12:24 PM

Occupy on!

I feel humbled to write even one word on thts scroll near Dareen’s tragic, beautiful poem.

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May 4, 2018 1:50 PM

Colin Wright

It speaks volumes that the closest analogy to Dareen’s case would be the experiences of writers in Stalin’s Russia.

…actually, they tended to be merely barred from publication. Imprisonment would have been a rather extreme outcome.

But then, I suppose one could say Dareen explicitly criticized the regime. It would probably have been off to the Gulag with her back in the day as well.

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May 4, 2018 5:10 PM

Colin Wright

Of course, one difference would be that the outrages of Stalinist repression were displays of strength — certainly not in a positive sense, but strength all the same. The regime was demonstrating its abilty to crush the entire populace into submission, to reduce everyone to a state of quivering terror.

It doesn’t come across that way when Israel does it. It reads more like a tacit admission of weakness — moral, ideological, and political weakness. Israel dare not permit her helots the freedom to speak out.

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May 4, 2018 5:33 PM

Jim

Interestingly enough, the Hebrew translation whitewashes her poetry.

In English “I will not succumb to the “peaceful solution,” but in Hebrew “a “peaceful solution“ isn’t enough”. (And why put in quotation “peaceful solution” to begin with?)

@ Jim: Was the original language in which the poem was written either Hebrew or English? No. It was written in Arabic. You must read the passage in the original Arabic before you wish to tar & feather anyone. Translations are approximations, not literal.

BTW, Israel is the one who has made a “peaceful solution” impossible. So for Dareen or any Palestinian to reject the notion of a possible peaceful solution is merely recognition of Israel-imposed reality. There is nothing radical or violent or revolutionary in Dareen’s statement.

@ Jim: Because Benayoun is a racist, homophobic, Islamophobic jackass who insulted my president. Dareen Tatour is none of those things. Oh and btw, in case I hadn’t mentioned this: you’re a jackass too. Hasbaroid first-class. Well, more like third-class, but who’s counting?

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May 4, 2018 11:46 PM

Frank

[comment deleted: when I moderate a commenter as I have you, I give them a chance to publish posts that respect the comment rules. But if they continue whining & whingeing as you have, then they are banned, which you now are.]

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May 4, 2018 10:40 PM

Deir Yassin

I read one of Yoav Haifawi’s articles on the case, about the ‘translator’s absence of linguistic skills, a policeman who’d taken an Arabic course in high school, an example: he didn’t know the word ‘ghazawat’ so he simply omitted it,
And that stuck me as the core of the case because it shows that not only he but the whole court staff is a bunch of illiterate idiots.
Ghazawât غزوات is the plural of ‘ghazwa’ which has gone into most European languages as ‘razzia’ …. the غ is pronounced somewhat like ‘ghr’ which became ‘r’ in italian before speading to other European languages.
Here it’s been translated as ‘raid’ which is really what a razzia is.

@Deir Yassin: do you know if the Stste offered a full translation of the poem into Hebrew? If so, it would be great to.put the State’s translation against a proper Hebrew translation. Then I could translate the State’s Hebrew into English. That should reveal how bad the State’s is.

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May 5, 2018 4:56 PM

Colin Wright

‘I read one of Yoav Haifawi’s articles on the case, about the ‘translator’s absence of linguistic skills, a policeman who’d taken an Arabic course in high school, an example: he didn’t know the word ‘ghazawat’ so he simply omitted it…’

What’s surreal about this is that 20% of pre-1967 Israel is Arabic-speaking — and if one counts the occupied territories Israel rules, the percentage rises to perhaps 40%. You could also note that maybe half of the Jews in Israel came from Arabic-speaking lands — they certainly didn’t speak Hebrew as a first language.

…and yet, a court can barely find an Arabic-speaking translator. Imagine the same situation in a court in California or Colorado — think maybe the court might have someone who was fluent in both languages kicking around?

The implicit arrogance, alienation, and racism is stunning. Sometimes, it’s not what is news in Palestine that is revealing, but what isn’t news — what are just the ordinary conditions of lives. The courts aren’t fluent in Arabic. Of course not. What: you thought this was an egalitarian society or something?

You’re probably aware that the situation is something like this: the State can certainly find excellent Arabic translators. But it doesn’t want to. It doesn’t want an accurate translation. It wants a useful translation. One that incriminates Dareen. SO for that it turns to a Shabak agent or some similar individual who studied Arabic for a year. THe guy may have a basic grasp of the language, buut certainly not enough to translate poetry. So he translates what he can and he translates it in a way that’s useful to the prosecution. And that’s it.

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May 5, 2018 7:33 PM

Colin Wright

Point taken. No doubt the trial was something of a production designed to justify the pre-determined end — and that, rather than any actual inability to find a competent translator — explains the translation furnished to the court.

However, I’ve also read some accounts of just how hard the police find it to investigate crimes in Jaffa et al on those occasions when they do want to investigate Palestinian-on-Palestinian crime. Apparently, they don’t have many officers fluent in Arabic.

To someone who has lived much of his life in the polylingual communities of California, that’s simply incredible. The police don’t speak Arabic? It’d be like the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department not being able to rustle up some Spanish speakers.

It’d be like the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department not being able to rustle up some Spanish speakers.

The relationship between Israeli police and Israeli Palestinians is different than that between LAPD and the Hispanic community. LAPD actually tries or at least needs to be able to communicate with this community. It often does a shitty job of it. But a good part of the time they’re trying. Not so at all in Israel. The police don’t even do a decent job when it comes to policing of Jews, let alone Palestinians. They’re a bunch of corrupt thugs.

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May 6, 2018 1:56 AM

Deir Yassin

@ Richard
No, I’m not aware of where to find the Hebrew version by this ‘translator’, but +972mag has a serie of articles on the case, one by Yoav Haifawi who gave some examples of his lacking skills, Dareen Tatour’s lawyer brought a real specialist of Arabic into court, of course a Jew, I guess they would never trust a native on this.
Reminds me that Jowan Safadi was also once investigated for ‘inciting terrorism’ in one of his songs, by some strange translation.

It sounds kind of dull to me. What clothing is ‘restrictive’ is pretty subjective.

An ancient Roman would found find trousers ‘restrictive.’ I’m happy as a clam in them — but really would feel silly in a toga. Presumably, you’d feel uncomfortable going topless in public; it’s my impression the women of Minoan Crete would have found that ‘restrictive.’

Seriously. She can dress however she pleases. That — not meeting someone else’s expectations — is actually what ‘freedom’ is about.

…and more seriously, yes, traditional Muslim dress can send all kinds of messages — most of which the wearer is perfectly entitled to send. When I taught high school, I chose to wear a tie and dress slacks. That sent a message I found it convenient to send.

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